"No two people see the external world in exactly the same way. To every separate person a thing is what he thinks it is -- in other words, not a thing, but a think." - Penelope Fitzgerald

May 2, 2017

An Introduction To Israeli Terrorist Activity

An introduction to war crimes committed by Israel in the territories it occupies for the non fact based corporate media.On Amnesty InternationalIsraeli forces unlawfully killed Palestinian civilians, including children, in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), and detained thousands of Palestinians from the OPT who opposed Israel’s continuing military occupation, holding hundreds in administrative detention. Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees remained rife and was committed with impunity. The authorities continued to promote illegal settlements in the West Bank, including by attempting to retroactively “legalize” settlements built on private Palestinian land, and severely restricted Palestinians’ freedom of movement, closing some areas after attacks by Palestinians on Israelis. Israeli forces continued to blockade the Gaza Strip, subjecting its population of 1.9 million to collective punishment, and to demolish homes of Palestinians in the West Bank and of Bedouin villagers in Israel’s Negev/Naqab region, forcibly evicting residents. The authorities imprisoned conscientious objectors to military service and detained and deported thousands of asylum-seekers from Africa.

A new United Nations report states definitively what human rights activists have been arguing for decades: "The weight of the evidence supports beyond a reasonable doubt the proposition that Israel is guilty of imposing an apartheid regime on the Palestinian people, which amounts to the commission of a crime against humanity."

The report, which was released by the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, notes that "Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid as legally defined in instruments of international law."

Forcefully condemning all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, the authors write, "The analysis in this report rests on the same body of international human rights law and principles that reject anti-Semitism and other racially discriminatory ideologies."

The U.N. document further emphasizes that countries around the world "have a legal obligation to act within the limits of their capabilities to prevent and punish instances of apartheid that are responsibly brought to their attention." It calls on states to refuse to recognize the apartheid regime as lawful and withhold aid and assistance.

The report even recommends that "National governments should support boycott, divestment and sanctions activities" against Israeli apartheid.

The U.S. government, Israel's closest ally, gives the country $3.8 billion in military aid every year. Several U.S. states have considered and even passed legislation to punish institutions, groups and individuals who support the kind of Israel boycott the U.N. expressly recommends.

This call comes mere days after the Israeli government passed a law banning people who support a boycott of Israel or even a partial boycott of its illegal activity in the occupied territories.

Rejecting all forms of racism

The report draws comparisons between the movement to end apartheid in South Africa and the movement for Palestinian human rights today. It suggests that the U.N. General Assembly should revive the Special Committee against Apartheid and the United Nations Center against Apartheid.

According to Article II of the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, apartheid is defined as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them."

While apartheid was originally associated with South Africa's white supremacist regime, the report notes that it remains a specific crime against humanity according to international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Extract: AMYGOODMAN: In a video made by Breaking the Silence, a first sergeant in the Israeli military, his voice distorted, describes how a commander told him, "There are no innocent civilians," and to assume anyone within 200 or 400 meters of the Israeli Defense Forces was an enemy. ’

IDFFIRSTSERGEANT: [translated] The commander announced, "Folks, tomorrow we enter. I want you to be determined, task-oriented and confident. The entire nation is behind you"—the usual speeches. And then he spoke about the rules of engagement. And I quote: "The rules of engagement are: Any person at a distance that could put you at risk, you kill him with no need for clearance." Meaning, anyone at a distance of 200, 300, 400 meters from us, isn’t an ordinary civilian. According to IDF logic, he must be there for a reason, because an ordinary civilian would flee the area, and so, we must kill him with no need for clearance. For me, it was just spine-tingling. I said to him, "Let me get this straight. Any person I see in the neighborhood where we’re headed, I spot him and kill him?" He said, "Yes. Any sane person who sees a tank battalion in his neighborhood will run away. If he sticks around, then he’s up to something. And if he’s up to something, it’s against you. So shoot him." So I tried to dig a little deeper and asked, "What if it’s an innocent civilian?" He said, "There are no innocent civilians. Your presumption should be that anyone within the area of battle, 200, 300, 400 meters from you, is your enemy."

UAN GONZÁLEZ: The Israeli military says it has opened criminal probes into two of its most publicized killings of Palestinian civilians during the summer’s assault on Gaza. Investigators will examine the killing of four Palestinian children on a Gaza beach and a later attack that killed 14 people in a U.N. school, one of several that hit U.N. shelters. Over 2,100 Palestinians, more than 75 percent civilians, were killed in the Israeli assault. Critics say Israel is seeking to deflect international scrutiny, including a United Nations Human Rights Council probe and potential cases before the International Criminal Court. However, the Israeli army has not announced plans to investigate another notorious episode that occurred during its recent assault on Gaza. That’s the Shejaiya massacre in July, when nearly 90 Gazans and 13 Israeli soldiers were killed.

AMYGOODMAN: Shejaiya is one of Gaza’s poorest and most crowded neighborhoods. Activists with the International Solidarity Movement posted a video on YouTube showing the fatal shooting of an unarmed Palestinian civilian during the massacre. Family members later stumbled onto the video and identified the man as 23-year-old Salem Khaleel Shamaly. In the video, we see Shamaly lying on the ground, apparently wounded by an unseen sniper. As Shamaly tries to get to his feet, two more shots ring out. He stops moving.

Well, our next guest interviewed three of the Israeli soldiers who witnessed the killing of Salem Shamaly. His confidential sources within the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, reportedly informed him that the real reason for the recent IDF Shejaiya massacre was that IDF soldiers were deliberately targeting civilians as punishment and retribution for the deaths of fellow soldiers in their units. This former soldier is named Eran Efrati. He’s a former Israeli combat soldier turned anti-occupation activist and investigative researcher. Later this month, Efrati will testify at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in Brussels.

The Israeli military exonerated itself late last month in 13 cases it had been investigating. These included lethal attacks on three Palestinian families, the shelling of a hospital and a United Nations shelter for civilians, and the bombing of Gaza's main power plant. It declined to investigate another 80 complaints.

In response, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon criticised Israel for the "low rate of investigations opened into these serious allegations".

Since Protective Edge, two of Israel's largest human rights groups, B'Tselem and Yesh Din, have refused to cooperate with Israeli investigations in Gaza, accusing the Israeli military of using them to "whitewash" its actions.

In June, the New York-based monitoring group, Human Rights Watch (HRW), added to the pressure on the ICC, calling for it to open a formal investigation into the Gaza offensive.

Every government has a duty to protect people under its rule from attack, but these measures must respect human rights and international humanitarian law.

Like targeting civilians, collective punishment is absolutely prohibited and can never be justified. When such punishment takes the form of extensive destruction of homes, it is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime. The Israeli authorities must immediately stop punishing those who are not responsible for the attacks: the perverse logic of this type of being "tough on terror" ends up inflicting suffering on the entire Palestinian population.

In an especially egregious case, Israeli forces shot dead 19-year-old Sa’ad Muhammad Youssef al-Atrash in the Old City of Hebron as he attempted to retrieve an ID card at an Israeli soldier’s request on 26 October. The Israeli police labelled the incident an “attempted stabbing” but an eyewitness watching the events unfold from her balcony said he had posed no threat when he was shot. One of the soldiers had asked him for ID, and as he reached into his pocket to grab his card another soldier standing behind him shot him on his right side, she told Amnesty International. The eyewitness said he was shot six or seven times and bled profusely as he lay on the ground for about 40 minutes afterwards, while soldiers failed to provide medical treatment. She also reported seeing soldiers bring a knife and place it in the dying man’s hand.

“Then they put him on a stretcher and pushed him towards an ambulance but didn’t put him in. By this time he looked extremely yellow and I thought that he was dead at that point. He remained in front of the ambulance for another 20 minutes before he was put inside it and taken away,” the witness said.

On 25 October, a short distance from where al-Atrash was killed, Israeli border police shot dead Dania Jihad Hussein Ershied, 17. Shortly before she was killed, she had passed through a checkpoint equipped with a metal detector and two revolving gates, between which Israeli forces frequently lock people they deem suspicious. At a second checkpoint in front of Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque she was called for a second inspection by more than five border police officers, who began searching her bag and yelling at her to show her knife.

Warning shots were fired at her feet, prompting her to step back and raise her hands in the air. She was shouting at the police that she did not have a knife and still had her arms raised when police again opened fire, shooting her six or seven times.

A photo of Ershied’s body shows a knife lying near the body, and the Israeli police spokesperson has stated that she attempted to stab a border policeman. However, even if Dania Jihad Hussein Ershied had a knife in her possession, eyewitness accounts indicate she was not posing a threat to Israeli forces when she was shot, and her killing is therefore absolutely unjustified.

Amnesty International has gathered evidence of other recent shootings in which Israeli forces used unwarranted lethal force in what were likely extrajudicial executions.

Quotes

"Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty." - Rumi

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that." - Joseph Campbell

"Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history." - Carl Jung

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - George Washington

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” - Dalai Lama

“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison. When the door is so wide open?” ― Rumi